


These Small Rebellions

by Trixxster103



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Drabbles, Gen, Rebellion, Slavery, So many OCs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8873197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixxster103/pseuds/Trixxster103
Summary: Not every rebel is in the history books. Not all of them get to blow up the Death Star. These are the small rebellions. Small, but just as hopeful.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically just gonna be OCs and I get that a lot of people may not like that and that's fair. I really felt Rogue One did a great job of showing the darker side to the Rebellion and that some of the battles are just messy and stupid, but no less meaningful. I basically wanted to explore the little rebellions that keep hope alive. Thus a collection of drabbles/one-shots about the different ways of rebelling against the Empire.

              Asha could feel the tumors growing in her lungs and the ache in her hands. The thick smoke of the Empire work camp clung to everything. No matter how much she washed the handkerchiefs she wrapped around her face they were always clogged with thick, black soot. It hadn’t made it her blind yet, thankfully, her sharp eyes the only thing keeping her position of head weapon maker intact. It was one of privilege; an extra bun and scoop of watery soup, and the guards rarely harassed her – she was surrounded by weapons after all.

              Every few months they sent her a boy or girl to try and replace her. And every time she sent them back after a week. There wasn’t a one she could trust, not a one with strong enough eyes. They had to be special, had to understand explicitly what they were doing when it came to weapons for the Empire. Stormtroopers couldn’t just have any old blaster after all, not when terrorists were trying to upset the natural order.

              When Bendak came, she thought he was too small and too scrawny to be worth even keeping a week. Hell, he could barely work the bellows. But there was a crafty glint to his eyes that Asha liked immediately. On his second day under her employ he came to her, out of the corner that he was supposed to be sitting in and not existing while she was talking to a Stormtrooper picking up the latest blaster parts that she had made.

              “Ey, boss. There’s something about these blasters I gotta tell you,” Bendak said, holding one of the ones she’d made in one hand and a standard blaster in the other. The boy was supposed to be comparing them, and when finished point out the subtle differences between the two. Asha looked at him, reserved and dangerous.

              “What is, boy?” The Stormtrooper asked, blaster primed and ready.

              Bendak balked, and subtly palmed the blaster, weighing his options. Asha felt her heart in her throat, ready for one of two inevitable extremes. It hadn’t been too bad a run at least, if she were honest. Most of her life had been good, barring the last few years. And so she had no regrets if she died.

              When Bendak continued to not answer the Stormtrooper batted him away like a fly, sending him hard into a table of weapons and cracking his head. The Stormtrooper laughed and reminded Asha to teach her whelps better manners around their superiors. When he left, after skimming some of the parts and her rations for himself, the tension in the room finally deflated and Asha felt a little of the pain in her body dissipate.

              Curled in the fetal position the boy began to laugh. It was thick and full of mucous, but alive. Asha steeled her gaze at him, wondering if he were crazy. Maybe it’d be good if he was. Sanity had never kept anyone alive in the work camps. While he laughed himself out she busied herself with cleaning, trying to figure out what to do with him. Whatever he had noticed, he had decided not to betray her in the end, but he had interrupted her while she was talking to a superior and that had put him in foul enough a mood that he taken her extra ration. He would only be there for five more days and then she could send him back, so she considered being lenient this once and simply giving him a warning.

              “I get it.” When Bendak sat up he had a look that could’ve knocked down a whole fleet of Stormtroopers. “And I’m going to live, now that I do. I’ll continue.”

              The boy grinned with a feverish intensity and Asha felt her heart finally leave her throat and drop to her stomach. There was no way that she’d finally found someone to continue on with her work. No way. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally quipped, slamming a rag onto her soot stained counter. It did little to clean the black off, but she felt triumphant about it anyways.

              “The blasters. The blasters!” Bendak’s voice rose, and Asha crossed the room in three short strides to clap a hand over his mouth and shush him.

              “I knew it. I knew the Stormtroopers couldn’t be dumb enough to miss every godamned Rebel that comes within five feet of them.”

              “You’re talking nonsense, son.”

              “No, I ain’t,” Bendak whispered, pulling her hands down. “And you know it.”

              Bendak picked up the two blasters that he dropped, placing the standard issue one in Asha’s hand and keeping the one she’d made in his own. “See here,” Bendak pointed out a few spots of difference, “it’s nearly impossible to notice, but the muzzle of your blasters are a few millimeters thinner, and the back of the case has almost imperceptible cracks in the sealant. I almost didn’t notice it myself.”

              Asha sighed and ran a few hand through her short cropped hair, disturbing the sooty grease there. She wiped it on her pants and then, the corner of her eyes crinkling in relief and feeling very old indeed, she explained, “The thinner muzzles cause the tiniest fluctuation in aim and eventual wear and warping along the whole barrel making hitting even a brick wall at three feet difficult. Especially when firing heavily, as it heats up so fast. The cracks in the sealant means it’s more likely to jam or accidentally explode in the user’s hand. Of course the failure rates are only a small percentile higher than normal, but…. Still.”

              “Show me,” Bendak murmured, stars in his eyes.

              “Yes.”

              And Asha felt real hope for the first time in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! All reviews, comments and critiques appreciated, they feed the writer!


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